Speed tests and empty links

TL;DR

One of the biggest problems with website accessibility are empty links. This is because screen readers need some text to read.

Therefore, WAVE is used to test which speed tests have empty links.

Of the top 10 speed tests, there are 6 speed tests without empty links. These speed tests are: Google Fiber, Internet Speed at a Glance, M-Lab, SpeedOf.me, SpeedSmart and TestMy.net.

 

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Method of measurement
  3. Speed tests to test
  4. The measurements
  5. Conclusions
 

Introduction

One of the most common accessibility failure mentioned in The WebAIM 2023 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages is "Empty links". That is, the link doesn't contain a text that could be interpreted by a screen reader.

 

Method of measurement

For this test, we use WAVE and take a look at the details of the errors.

All cookie banners and so on are accepted before we start WAVE with Shift-Ctrl-U. When a speed test starts automatically, WAVE is started when the test is completed.

 

Speed tests to test

Because this is a relative simple test, the unique speed tests as collected at ZOMDir will be tested.

 

The measurements

  1. Astound speedtest 0 empty links
  2. Bandwidth Place 0 empty links
  3. Bredbandskollen 0 empty links
  4. Broadband Internet Speed test (Gone) 0 empty links
  5. Broadband Speed Checker 0 empty links
  6. Cloudflare 1 empty link
  7. Comparitech 0 empty links
  8. DSLReports 0 empty links
  9. Fast 3 empty links
  10. Fireprobe 87 empty links
  11. Google Fiber 0 empty links
  12. Internet Speed at a Glance 0 empty links
  13. LibreSpeed 0 empty links
  14. M-Lab 0 empty links
  15. Meter.net 3 empty links
  16. N Perf 10 empty links
  17. Ookla Speedtest 2 empty links
  18. Open Speed Test 0 empty links
  19. SamKnows 0 empty links
  20. SpeedCheck 0 empty links
  21. SpeedOf.me 0 empty links
  22. SpeedOf.me API Sample Page 0 empty links
  23. SpeedSmart 0 empty links
  24. Speedtest4.PHP 0 empty links
  25. TestMy.net 0 empty links
  26. Toast 1 empty link
  27. Which Broadband Speed Test 0 empty links
  28. Xfinity xFi Speed Test 0 empty links

The Xfinity xFi Speed Test didn't allow to start WAVE with Shift-Ctrl-U, hence this speed test is tested manually via the WAVE website.

 

Conclusions

  1. There are 23 speed tests with 0 empty links
  2. Of these speed tests the following 6 speed tests are in the speed test top 10:
    1. Google Fiber
    2. Internet Speed at a Glance
    3. M-Lab
    4. SpeedOf.me
    5. SpeedSmart
    6. TestMy.net